Cohabitation

Cohabitation

In this assignment, the article “New Families: Modern Couples as New Pioneers” written by Phillip Cowan and Carolyn Cowan, they talk about how parenthood has changed over the years and how stress can effect the many hardships and the changes couples face as they transition into parents. In this article, they interview many adults and many of these couples have stated their struggle over whether or not they are ready for children or if they actually want children.
The article then talks about how parenthood changes a persons perception of themselves. Before becoming a parent people thought of themselves as being a wife or husband, daughter or son, friend, coworker, ext but after a little while of being a parent they said their whole view of self had changed and their role as mother or father had consumed most of their self perception.
This article also points out a lot of evidence that in today’s modern families in America, we are declining rapidly when it comes to family values. The roles of a traditional family can be stressful and cause a decline in the relationship due to the fact the mothers come home to what Cowan describes as their second shift. The change in family dynamics also plays a huge role in the stress that parenthood plays on couples. Since it is more common now for women to have a job and want to return to that job sometime after giving birth they put even more stress on themselves. This also deals with the issues of who does what in the family regarding housework and childcare. The article talks about the tensions that arise when couples are trying to divide up the work and how women are normally expected to do all the child care. This is why I believe families should transition to become egalitarian families where the family responsibilities is shared more or less equally by both the wife and husband.

In the article called “Unequal Childhoods”, by Annette Lareau is about the impact of how social class can make a difference in family...